Why I hate mother's day

See these two ladies?

At the charter school they go to, they are required to memorize a poem every grading period to recite in front of the class (this, strangely, has no affect on them.  at their age I would have broken out in a nervous sweat and probably started to cry).  The kind teachers try to match the four choices in poetry to the time of year.  In December there were verses on Christmas, Veterans Day there were ones all about soldiers... you get it.

Well, because I am Mom-Extraordinaire, I kinda forgot all about these memorizations.  Until last night.  When they were due the next day.  Great parenting, right?  Anyway, the girls pull them out, choose a poem and start practicing them while I am trying to bathe Mr. Wyatt and get the Stubborn Porter-Pot to please just clean his room already.

 **this pic was actually taken last night, after his bath, while I gave him his nightly rubdown.  He is extremely ticklish and belly laughs the entire time**

To fill you in, earlier in the day I had a total of seven giggling girls parading around my teeny living room, working on their dance for the talent show this week (six performers, one spectator).  I also was the only adult home and had my two rascal (and rather disobedient) boys running around.  And then I got it into my head to paint all of the girls' nails a neon color to match their neon costumes.

Long story, short: I got every last extra-child out of my home by 6:15.  And I had no plans whatsoever for our dinner.

We ate cereal.  Don't judge.

Fast-forward to the poem memorizing.

I finally get Wyatt to bed, then Porter goes in the baby's room and pulls him out.  One, Two, Three... "Why did you do that, Porter?"

"Because I want to play with his blocks."

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six...

"Did you get your room clean?"

"Yes."

No, no his room wasn't clean.  "Go clean it up the right way please."

All during this Piper and Adi are following me around, competing for my sole attention in hearing them recite.  I sit down on my bed between the girls and we start again.

Wyatt cries, Porter runs into his room and shuts the door.  "What happened Porter?"

"Nothing."

"Why is Wyatt crying?"

"He was touching my tools so I pushed him away."

Back to bed Wyatt goes.  Back to "cleaning" Porter goes.

Meanwhile, the girls have broken out into a full-on cat fight over who gets to write their poem on the white board (we have two).

I send Adi into my room to practice while I sit on the couch next to Piper, with the promise that I will be right in to hear hers.

Adi is scared to be alone in my room with the door shut.  I have absolutely no idea why.  The girl is afraid when I take a shower at night and Orrin isn't home.  Also to go in the garage in the middle of the day to get me a roll of paper towels.  Big chicken, this one is.

"Adison!  Just do it."  This was not said in my nicest voice.

Porter comes running by with marker all over his hands.

"Porter, what is that on your hands?"

"Nothing." (Why do kids think this line will work?)

"Why aren't you cleaning your room?"  He turns around and runs back to his room.

"Mom! Please listen to me!"  Whiny Piper voice has made it's appearance.

"I am now focused solely on...  PORTER GRANT MERRILL!  GET BACK IN YOUR ROOM AND PICK UP YOUR TOYS!"

Notice the all-caps?  Once again, not in my kindest voice.

"But it's cleeean!!" He is now jumping up and down in frustration.

I can see the floor of his room from the couch.  "Nope, it's not.  See the clothes on the floor?  And the toys?  And is that your sister's purse?"

"AAAARRRGGGHHH!"  He stomps away.

"Mo-om!" Piper's whining.

"I'm scared!  I'm scared!"  Adi in the bedroom.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

That might have been me.

Very loud sigh.  Deep breath in, long exhale, and rubbing of my head.

"Ok, Pipes.  It's all you."

"Motherhood

The dearest gifts that heaven holds,

The very finest, too,

Were made into one pattern

That was perfect, sweet, and true;

The Angels smiled, well-pleased, and said:

'Compared to all the others,

This pattern is so wonderful

Let's use it just for Mothers!"

And through the years, a Mother

Has been all that's sweet and good

For there's one bit of God and love,

In all true motherhood."

Well, hello guilt.

"Hmmm... that sounds exactly like me, doesn't it Pipes?"  I may be a bit sarcastic.

"Um, sometimes..." This girl could be a politician.

"Ha! I don't think I'm exactly 'all that's sweet and good' tonight, am I?"

"Well, maybe you should work on that."

The forgotten one

It would seem as though I have forgotten about someone on this humble little blog of mine.

Namely, Mr. Wyatt Clark Merrill.  Or, as he is known around these parts, Wy-Fi.  Of course, he is also called Wyetta a whole heck of a lot, but that's a whole other story that includes a tutu and some really giggly sisters.

A while back, my dearest father called me and asked me how "the forgotten one" was doing.  Naturally, I assumed he was talking about old Orrin.  It took me a rather long, awkward moment to figure out that he meant my youngest child who rarely makes an appearance on this blog.

And now I shall make an excuse for this: Wy-fi has a tendency of taking a lot of naps when I have my friend, The Camera, waving around.  Well, that, and he usually takes one look at The Camera and runs in the opposite direction.  Because he is a giant turd, that's why.

See how in this picture he is refusing to look into the camera... well, the phone.  Let's not be picky, though.

**gasp! a rare Courtney sighting!**

Hey kid, I'm pretty sure you ended up with your Momma's eyes.

Please be assured that this little man is still calling most of the shots in the Merrill household.  It's just that most of the time I can only get a blurry shot of his chubby little body streaking by.

There he goes now!

Isn't Wyatt just the perfect little gentleman at church?

You're allowed to snap a picture on your phone before sacrament starts, right?

Do not be fooled by the serene look on the kid's face. He is secretly plotting his chapel exit strategy.

Told ya.

He also has become the computer warden and decides who gets to use it and when.  If you try to use it when he deems it impossible, you'll have to deal with this:

Good luck getting by that guy.

Wyatt likes bath time,

playing at the park,

walks (especially ones that end at the park),

drinking water (yep, he belongs to OP alright),

getting loves from the select few whom he allows to touch him,

car rides,

 the vacuum (nope.  no idea),

and generally running amuck.

  His dislikes?  Well, there may be a few.

Being told "no" when he wants more cookie dough

and when he keeps crying for Mom's attention and she won't lift her eyes from her toy phone.

Oh, and he protests extremely loud when it is time to visit the doctor.  Don't be fooled by his sweet face in this picture.  He was a little devil the entire time.  Although I should point out that he only cried while we held his arms down (the kid does not like to be restrained) while he got his four shots.  Yup, I said four shots.  As soon as we let him go he was fine.

Also, shopping bores him immensely. 

This kid also likes his meals.  And his snacks.  And the random crumbs he finds on the floor or table between meals and snack time.

This picture just might be my most favorite in the history of ever.

Have I mentioned that he is also a little bit accident prone?

Ok, ok, maybe he's a lot accident prone.

See the look on his face?  Nope.  No tears.  He was looking at his Momma in bewilderment- trying to figure out why she was sobbing and snotting (of course the worry was not greater than my desire to get a picture of his calm reaction to nearly taking off his face on the playground sand).

Wyatt is at that fun age where one minute he has me completely under his little chubby-toddler-drooling-grin spell, and the next he has me sitting in the corner rocking back and forth and counting to ten.

But I shall keep this little Tank.  I will share him though, if anyone is interested in babysitting him for a few hours (he, of course, comes as a package deal with three other awesome siblings). 

Oh, and I noticed that I put him in a lot of orange.  Never did realize that.

I had absolutely no intention of this happening.

Church was exciting today.

If, by exciting, I mean very mental exhausting (Adi), back-breaking (Wyatt), glare-giving (PG), slobbery, boogery fun (Sunbeam class I subbed for).  Notice that Piper's name didn't appear in any of my sarcastic parenthesis.  The girl is an angel in church.

Anywho, I was smart enough to throw a roast and taters in the crock pot in the morning, so we had a quick and easy dinner.  After we kissed our Daddy goodbye, I decided to load up the lot and go explore our possible-new neighborhood.

Mainly, I wanted to find a park close enough to walk to. This is high-up on the necessity ladder in this family.  Unfortunately, there weren't any.  And park we found was just a bit too far away for me to walk to with the kiddos, but since there is a mega-huge park only three miles away, I shall stop my complaining.

We stumbled upon a cute little park tucked away in a pocket of homes.  We had the windows rolled down while driving and the weather was absolutely perfect for playing outside.  The sun was beginning to consider setting and I felt that it would be a crime against mothering if I didn't let the kids loose to run free.

I did not have my camera (because, again, I did not plan on having any kind of fun), so I snapped away with my old-school iPhone- the pre-Siri one.  

There were swings.  Just two, but one of them was a baby-thingy, so Wyatt got lots of time in it.

The boys played on the slide and stuff.

And then the kiddos started climbing the climby-thing.  It's amazing how I know the exact name of all the playground equipment, right?

And since my kids are more Merrill than me, once they climb to top of something and don't get hurt, they then have to try to hurt themselves  trickier things.

And then it was time for baths, brushing of the teeth, and bedtime stories.

Awesome timing.

I've Been Bitten

Where the heck have I been?

I know that you've been asking yourself this question because you are a most faithful follower of this little blog and you feel so very lost when I do not constantly post.

No?  Well, fine then.

I'm still going to tell you what we Merrills have been up to.

OP and I are right in the thick of buying a house.  It always seemed easy in the past.  You'd find a house you like, sign a mountain of papers, then move into the house.  Right?  Not this time.  The market out here in Arizona is on the rise and all of the homes in our area are being snatched up by money-totting investors site-unseen. Which means that little people like us who have to bother with silly things such as mortgages are being left in the dust.

We finally made an offer on a house that was accepted, but since this house is a short sale, we are in the process of waiting.  Waiting to see if the bank approves our offer, waiting to find out just how many square feet of flooring we'll need to order to replace the old, nasty stuff (cigarette burns, people), waiting to buy gallons of new paint to cover the dark purple, neon yellow and dirty white... and we're waiting to find out if we're completely crazy for getting a house that needs so much work.

It has also given me dust off my ole decorating skills (I simply haven't cared for a while now) and start making some plans.  Hello, Pinterest.

 Oh yes, I've been busy.

The girlies are very excited because they are getting their own rooms.  Adi will have enough room for all of her teaching stuff that she's collected and is currently storing in the closet, and Piper will finally get to prove that it isn't her that pigs-up the room.

The girls have big dreams when it comes to how their rooms will look.  And very... beautiful?... ideas on what colors and decorations to put in there.  To help these little ladies along, and to still maintain a level of control that I am comfortable with, I made a few design boards for the girls.  This way they can choose the color scheme and overall theme of their own room. 

I did add a little disclaimer before letting them choose: Mom gets absolute say in the end, so if they want something that makes Mom cringe, it is a no.

*All the images came from my darling Pinterest*

Why a surf one?  Because ever since seeing Soul Surfer, Adi has decided that she loves surfing.  However, her mother also loves to watch Shark Week, and that has made her absolutely terrified of ever going near the ocean.

And now, they get to choose.  Adi automatically said she wanted the surf one.  I told her to actually look at the other ones and see if maybe she'd like one of those.  Nope.  Surf.

Pipes gave a squeal of delight and breathlessly said, "I can't choose one!  They're all so pretty!"

I am now off to make a few more design boards for my kitchen, bedroom, family room, and eating nook!